Hell on Earth: Anxiety Disorder

The therapist glared at me as I cried my usual mincing tears, and he suddenly snapped, “Stop crying! You’re not sad. You’re angry.”

Surprising myself, my simpering stopped immediately and I matched him glare for glare. It’s so much easier to be angry. Was he right? I had been angry all along? At what, exactly?

memory

Hours after my mother had tucked me into my twin bed after ripping the day’s socks off my feet, I woke up in an unexplained panic. I lay for a moment trying to figure out what was bothering me and why my throat was so thick! My breathing was okay, but I couldn’t seem to make myself swallow, and it was only getting worse as I tried harder to make my muscles work. “Okay,” I reasoned with myself as I stared at the wall, “just slow down and take a second.” I now realized my breathing had started to speed up and I was genuinely scared. Why couldn’t I swallow? Why did my throat feel so thick and tight? Was my tongue swelling? My heart was speeding up as I realized that I couldn’t swallow, with my young mind only knowing to keep trying and making it worse. Tears were stinging my eyes and I was now audibly gasping. My parent’s room was on the other side of the house through the living room. I don’t remember stumbling through the house or waking up my mother as I was now panting and whining.

Elfriede tends to be old school–heck, old world–and usually if I and one of my siblings dare approached her with a physical ailment like stomach pain or a headache, she’ll tell us to go walk around the block and it’ll feel better, or to go chop some wood (we had no fireplace or wood). Don’t get me wrong, she was the consummate Mama and when I was sick it was always nice to have her seem to completely understand what I need and nurse me back to health. There were countless times myself or one of my siblings would be coughing in the night and here was Elfriede with the cough syrup and the thermometer, appearing magically out of thin air to solve our woes. Old world, however, doesn’t take kindly to the everyday aches and pains and will dish out physical labor more than Tylenol. That night will always live in my memory as the first true, sheer panic that I’ve felt. So Elfriede knew better, probably because of my heaving and out of control crying, than to just send me back to my bed.

I can see the scene as if I’m not the little girl sitting next to the tired mother who is rubbing the child’s back and trying to comfort and understand something that isn’t rational. The bony child has wild, nappy hair; light skin that is reddish with anguish; large, doe eyes that are wide with terror and leaking tears; and her mouth hanging open gulping air that would come easily if she would just calm down and realize that she’s fine. But she can’t swallow and her throat feels huge and her tongue isn’t doing what she wants it to do. Pure panic has sent adrenalin into her heart and her veins and made her heart rate increase, her lungs press heavily in and out, and her muscles swell with wasted energy. Elfriede doesn’t leave the little girl alone, but I can imagine she also doesn’t know what to do. There’s only one thing she knows can make the child happy: her favorite candy. And, like magic, the panic only subsides as she eats the Twix bar next to her mother and realizes that she can, of course, swallow, her tongue is normal and that her throat seems to be working fine now. She will go back to bed and let her mother sleep, resting for the next child’s problem.

My mother told me that I went to Florida with the family as a young child, just out of toddler age, to visit my father’s father, Peter Nelson. In Florida in the 70s, I went into a candy store and waited for my turn. Just as I got to the counter, my mother said that some white people had come in and the clerk stated he had to help them first. Elfriede stated that I loudly demanded that I be served since I was next and made the clerk serve me. And yes, I did a striptease act in 1st grade down to a bikini (see my blog about myself, #3). This is who I was: open, loud, and full of bluster and sass. I know I sound like a conceited jerk, but I wasn’t conceited. I didn’t know that I was all this–I just was it. I didn’t demand to go in front of everyone in the candy store; I only wanted my turn. I was outgoing, but I loved my family and I cared about my friends.

When did this change? Because it did. I blamed it for a long time on Elfriede, who was intimidating and wouldn’t let anyone in our house or too close to us. She had a few people she let near her and her kids, but mostly not. The tiger in her didn’t suffer fools or their foolishness long, and she just wasn’t interested in having friends or a social life. She kept her husband’s family near, but not too close. She visited James’s mother, as I wrote about in previous blog posts, but more as a formality or something you did. She dressed us up like little dolls and we were not to move at my grandmother’s house, despite the fact that our cousins were free to be themselves. Once my sister and I were playing with a toy at my grandmother’s house that a cousin had left lying around, and we were summarily scolded for acting silly. We were only being kids, but that was shut down quick. I said it before: old world, not just old school. Lovely children to be seen and not heard, and certainly not acting like children of all things. We were not at home at our grandmother’s house and had to remain stiff and polite.

My mother let our grandmother babysit us once when we were babies, only to come home and find us in diapers running around. Horrified, Elfriede didn’t let Alice Nelson babysit again–or any family member for that. Her children had to be clean and dressed at all times. We grew up used to being a tightly knit unit that only had a small number of friends–good friends, but not many, and they certainly weren’t allowed in our house. That would tamper down anyone’s free spirit, but I don’t think that was why my wings were clipped. At least, it wasn’t the only reason.

A big chunk of blame goes to the ever present and very mighty racism that prevails in American society. As someone who is light-skinned, I took less battering from the ram called prejudice, but I still had my encounters (see blog #3). Moving to Sunnyside Elementary School in 2nd grade had a huge impact on my life in more ways than one. I was one of 2 black girls in the class (that would change in middle school). I always wondered why I wasn’t invited to people’s parties that I would hear about later, and it was a big issue if I was supposed to go to someone’s house to finish a project. I wasn’t “allowed” in their houses. When I had my first real crush on a boy, I asked one of my classmates if she thought he would like me. She turned to me horrified and almost screamed, “NO!” Was I that ugly or unlikable? I later realized that because the boy was white and I wasn’t, this pairing was unthinkable to her. A good friend of mine in elementary school even told me that if I married him (ha!–we were in 4th grade), my babies would turn out to be zebras. I took this to mean the kids would somehow be deformed. It never occurred to me until later because I saw the girl as a friend that she was talking about biracial children as if they were animals and abnormal; did she even realize that she was speaking to a biracial child? Kids can be really dumb.

I was not expected to be the outgoing, drama queen that I was. Sunnyside helped to shove that sweet but sassy girl down into someone who just wanted to be accepted and appreciated for who she was. There I was overlooked, sometimes deliberately and sometimes just as an after-effect of the system’s problems. This shunning and marginalization would live with me for the rest of my life and only get worse as anxiety reared its ugly head and became a partner in my world.

20 or so years after I left Sunnyside and its bigger brother MacArthur Middle School, the girls of the class wanted to have a reunion. I was wholly shocked when they contacted me to be at the reunion. I didn’t think I was noticed or seen as one of the group. I had gained weight and didn’t want to face anyone, so they sent me pictures and invited me again later. I still didn’t go.

btw

I had a cousin who committed suicide when he was quite young, early 20s. He lived on the West side of Chicago with his mother when he started complaining that someone was after him and trying to kill him. He managed to name a gang of some sort and his mother believed him, placing the young man with her sister, his aunt, in a southern suburb, far enough away from the gangs to hopefully help the situation. It didn’t. He still complained of someone being after him.

I was in my father’s makeshift office in the basement of the Bellwood house when he talked to me about my cousin going to live with Peter, my grandfather in Mississippi, for a while. I had visited Peter before, a clean, self-sufficient older man who lived in a retirement community in the middle of Mississippi. I remember pausing for a moment as my father talked about his poor nephew. I’m not sure where it came from as I was so young myself, but I asked my father, “Are you sure there is someone after him? Maybe he just needs help.” It just didn’t make sense to me that “gangs” were after him. That’s not how it worked.

My father blinked back confusion. “What do you mean? Why would he say someone’s after him when they’re not?”

I tried to explain what I meant. Paranoia will make one truly feel that someone is out to kill them. They can be real people like a gang that is real or vague or completely imagined like people in the TV or government officials. I’m sure my cousin felt that he was being chased, but something seemed really fishy about the story, and that he was still facing the same problem in the South suburbs really made me think it was something mentally happening and not real. The fear is very real to the person feeling it though the threat might not be. My father didn’t agree, and they sent him to Peter. Within a couple of weeks, he had locked himself in Peter’s small bathroom and shot himself in the head. I felt so bad for Peter who didn’t know how to help and had to find the young man like that. And my poor cousin who must have felt he didn’t have anywhere else to run to and was still being chased. Sometimes, peace means more than this world and the loved ones left behind, as the grave sure looks peaceful at times. I’ve been there; most people who suffer from mental illness have.

Suicide may seem like a peaceful solution, but it robs the world and oneself of what could be. I honestly believe we are put on this Earth for a reason and no matter the pain and the suffering, there is something one must do before time’s up. Suicide leaves too many to suffer and it’s not the peace one thinks of.

btw

My mother claimed there was no mental illness in her family, but that was “old world” talking because she would tell me of family members who were hidden away because they weren’t “right” or normal. Later in her life, she would have massive panic attacks and exhibit these little mini-phobias that I would have to talk her down from as much as I could. She’s a nester (meaning she likes to clean and decorate her “nest”, her home, and her yard), and she took to burying her most precious objects for a while, afraid they would be stolen or given away when she died. At her old house, whoever gets to digging in that yard will find some treasures–strangely buried, but treasures nonetheless. She had a strong aversion to the tub because she felt she would fall and either hurt herself or die in the tub, naked. She bathed outside for a while because of that until I could finally talk her back into the tub. Elfriede had severe depression as she got older and became sick. I always thought it was part reactionary because who wouldn’t get depressed when you couldn’t do what you love anymore thanks to pain and sickness? However, the depression came in cycles and I thought it was just too perfectly timed to be a mere reaction to circumstances only. There had to be a chemical explanation, too. My belief is that Elfriede suffered from anxieties and depression, but she was just too busy with 5 kids, a husband with his own issues, and a part-time and then a full-time job to openly express it or take the time to care. She would retreat to her room or her bed a lot.

James was an interesting human being to say the least for many reasons. If one reads blog #2, one can learn about his own hang-ups and issues. Still, there’s more than that seems to have lent itself to his peculiar eccentricities. I’ve always wondered if he was undiagnosed Asperger’s or at least on the Autism scale in some way. He’d be high functioning, but there were definite quirks like he didn’t care that food was expired or not cooked right, he would eat it anyway. His complete lack of care of his own body or any illness he suffered from makes me think there was something deeper than just abandonment issues and some neglect as a child. He swore he never had cancer, but he was treated with radiation for prostate cancer while he lived in Illinois. People don’t just get radiation for nothing, but to him that wasn’t enough proof of him having cancer. He would remember things in a completely different way than others, either being the hero or the victim. He believed the false memories, though–it wasn’t just a lie but something he thought really happened. I’ve always wondered if he had some type of narcolepsy because he could fall asleep anytime, anywhere. Heck, he fell asleep on his first date with my mother, someone he was so captivated with that he declared she would be his wife the moment he met her. He was tired all of the time. We would go camping and he was asleep. Once we threw him a surprise birthday party and the pictures show him leaning on his open hand with heavy lids, a touch of a smile playing on his mouth. He looked like he would pass out any second.

These are my genes. What are you gonna do?

My second most memorable anxiety attack happened as a teen. James, graciously, bought tickets for ice skating for himself and his daughters. We went to the United Center one lovely afternoon and headed up to the “nose bleed” seats. We were up so high in that place that I watched the spotlight-guy in a little cage extended over the rink below operating his light. It was no problem getting to the high point in the arena. However, I had to get to the seat that jutted out of the wall and cascaded down in a frightening angle. I’m sure this made it easy to see the skaters below, but I remember the panic was almost instant. I gripped the back railing behind the last seats and begged my father not to make me go to that seat below. He did everything he could to get me to sit down, but I ended up howling and crying in front of all of these strangers who I’m sure thought I was insane. James did the only thing he could do short of taking us all home and missing the show: as I stood weeping, my hand gripping the rail, he told my sisters to go the seats and enjoy the show. They happily romped down the steep steps and bounced into their seats. My spirit was outraged at how easy it was for them and how easy it should have been for me. Instead, my father stood by me, leaning on the rail as I’m sure his back hurt, and let me cry it out until I calmed down. He stayed there until the show was over, not being able to see much or rest. I couldn’t think straight. I just wanted out of that place. I don’t remember the show–I couldn’t see it anyway–or much else that happened that day. I still feel guilty for making my father stand the entire show and having to calm me down in public.